Archive for January, 2017

Many of the firearm manufacturers have caught on and are now making firearms with Trijicon High Definition Sights or Trijicon HD Sights directly from the factory. One of the reasons buying firearms off of websites like Gunbroker.com and other places is you can do the least amount of gunsmithing and pick out something you want. Sights and triggers and often grips are changed and it can add up to being a giant waste of money to have to take things off of a stock firearm to get it the way you want. Trijicon products are all built around their famous Tritium and fiber optics for rifle scope and Night Sights. There really isn’t a lot of competition out there and for robust and easy to replace sights, these are our number one “switch out” sights for handguns.

One of the main selling points of these sights is they do extremely well as night sights, but for outdoor shooting, the fiber optic is built into the front sight and glows extremely bright. Trijicon HD Sights are purchased by Special Operations units, Law Enforcement and your every day CCW holder. They are available in various patterns, front Yellow, Front Orange, and green dot rear sights. Trijicon also has them in Novak configurations for 1911s and for those of you that might have picked up a Sig P320, the Trijicon Sights for Sig Sauer Pistols are the same as the P225, P226, P228, P239, and P320 (Excluding P938).

Back in the day it use to be that night sights were for your bedside gun or the gun you kept in the closet for home invasions. Now, many police departments including my home town Police Department are issued their Glock 21’s with Meprolight Night Sights. They are probable better described as high definition sights because they work very well during the day time. It’s not all about how bad your eyes are, it’s all about how fast you can pick up the sights when aiming a handgun and how fast you get a sight picture. I’ve found Glock factory sights and Sig Factory sights work well for me when I have light out, but in low light, these sights are outstanding.

The Glock 42 and Glock 43 have become extremely popular off duty firearms and it’s an easy transition from a Glock 21 or a Glock 27 to just a smaller version. Meprolight Night Sights are available for all of the Glock Pistols as well as the extremely popular Smith & Wesson Shield. There are also very common on 1911 Variants and the majority of the Sig Sauer P Series handguns. There is a lot of debate and comparison between Trijicon and Meprolight as far as the clarity and definition of the sights, but it’s the same as the Glock vs Sig comparisons.

I don’t think there are firearms out there besides the 1911 and the AR15 that are ALWAYS customized. It’s rare for me to find a firearm that is just a stock version. There are quad rails, MOE rails, M-lok rails, Key-Mod. With 1911s, there are so many slides, triggers, grips, extensions, magazine base plate, barrels and on and on. There are ways to make these competition shooter guns or precision rifles, but there are always combat versions. The 1911 isn’t going anywhere, even though there are high capacity firearms in 45acp like the Glock 21, but the accuracy and fun you get with 45acp for competition won’t disappear.

I’ve found that Wilson Combat Magazines always work best in my firearms but I keep it simple with ball ammo. There are modifications to the throat of a 1911 that you can make to feed hollow point ammunition but I’ve only done that to one of my 1911s. I consider the Wilson Combat 8rd Magazines to be “standard capacity” for my 1911s and don’t notice any reliability differences. Many in the competition shooting world use the Wilson Combat 10rd magazines but I find extended magazines to be uncomfortable for CCW. Extended magazines tend to get caught on clothing and are more likely to snag. If you own a 1911, and you haven’t discovered Wilson Combat Magazines then think about adding them to your collection because they work.